When I was a small child everything I knew about baseball came from either the back of a baseball card or what the local color guys for the Yankees and Mets told me on TV. During this impressionable age, I remember reading about Steve Stone winning the Cy Young Award in 1980 and how he earned a $10,000 bonus for his trouble. As an impressionable lad, I figured that for Stone to have this bonus in his contract he had to be an excellent pitcher. Some superficial research told me that this wasn’t the case at all; Stone was a solid-but-unspectacular pitcher. As I learned from the back of this particular baseball card, the bonus clause was put into the contract, but it was something the Orioles figured he’d never collect.

“It was like an insurance salesman telling you, ‘We’ll give you $50,000 if an elephant falls on you,’ because he knows darn well an elephant isn’t going to fall on you,” Stone said at the time.

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If Matt Capps should fall, where should a smart owner look for Twins saves?

I’ve received a few questions recently from readers in the save-speculating business. There’s been quite a bit of ninth-inning turnover in the early going of 2012, so it’s natural to wonder who’ll find themselves in a closer’s chair next. While I don’t recommend save speculating in shallower leagues—closers-in-waiting have a low success rate—it can certainly be worthwhile in deep leagues where a reliever’s ratios have some value unto themselves and where the value of a bench spot is minimal. Even if you play in a shallow mixed league, though, it’s important to keep up with who is next in line should a mad dash to the waiver wire eventually be required. After all, it does the fastest runner no good if he doesn’t run in the direction of the finish line.

As such, over the next couple of weeks I will be examining some not-so-obvious late-inning situations to try and suss out the player who is next-in-line for saves. Today, I’m going to delve in the bullpen of the Minnesota Twins.

With all of the big-name free-agent closers off the market, how are things shaking out at the end of each team's bullpen?

Now that the Blue Jays have signed Francisco Cordero, all of the legitimate closer candidates are now off the free-agent market. As such, now makes for a good time to check out how things look now that the closer carousel has stopped spinning.

A look at relievers who have the skills needed to close and are just awaiting the opportunity

Today’s closers are mostly one of two things: yesterday’s failed starting pitcher or yesterday’s middle reliever. Rarely is a pitcher drafted and developed purely for the closing role, as many of today’s closers were once starting pitchers in the minors that either failed to stay healthy long enough to develop as a starter or never showed an ability to throw an effective off-speed pitch. The greatest closer in the history of this game, Mariano Rivera, had but one save in his entire minor league career, and it came in his first professional outing in the Gulf Coast League in 1990. Lee Smith had 478 saves in his career but had just two in his first 58 games in the majors and only 17 in six seasons of minor league baseball before the Cubs promoted him in 1980 (and 15 of those came that same season in Wichita). Brad Lidge never saved a game in his minor league career but was shifted to a relief role in his fifth minor league season because he was only able to pitch in 23 games in his first four years and amass 99 innings of work in those games (all starts).

The noise coming out of Miami only rivals the shuffling market for closers. What are the fantasy implications?

Jose Reyes | Miami Marlins | SS | Signed as Free AgentFew would have predicted Reyes signing with Miami even a month ago, but the newly relocated Marlins are making big waves in the free-agent market this winter. In Miami, Reyes's value will likely rise a bit, but his ultimate fantasy value will be heavily tied to how many games he manages to stay on the field for. He'll bat leadoff for the Fish as he did for the Mets, but he'll have some much bigger bats behind him to drive him in; once you get past Emilio Bonifacio, who will bat second, he'll have Hanley Ramirez and Mike Stanton.

Reyes has averaged just nine home runs per season in Citi Field, so you might expect his power production to improve now that he's leaving (after all, he had a couple of 15-plus homer seasons in Shea Stadium). That is, until you realize that the new Marlins Ballpark has deeper fences than Citi almost the entire way around. The good news is that Reyes will recoup some of this value in terms of his steals. Ozzie Guillen is one of the most aggressive managers in terms of attempting steals, so Reyes could find himself back up over 45 or 50 swipes in 2012.

Mike welcomes three K-happy relievers to the party and discusses the shaky situations in Kansas City and Minnesota.

Before we get into the usual list, I want to quickly touch on the closer situation in Kansas City, where Joakim Soriahas seemingly regained his job before Aaron Crow even received a save opportunity. They’re both owned by too many fantasy leaguers to warrant inclusion on our list here, but it’s worth noting that while Soria did throw five scoreless innings in his first three June outings, he only struck out one of the 17 hitters he faced. That’s hardly enough to convince me that he’s “back”, so before dumping Crow, watch Soria carefully over his next few outings.

Questions answered for the Rays and Nationals bullpens, and new ones asked about the White Sox.

Here at Value Picks HQ, we’re back in the swing of things with identifying undervalued assets who are available in 80 percent (or more) of leagues for you to pick up. Of course, if I do my job well, the list here will constantly be shuffling as ownership levels and player performances rise and fall. To that end, our list is split into three sections: guys from the previous week that we’ll be moving on from, guys who are staying with us, and brand new additions. Let’s get started.

The first week of the season has brought some clarity to closer situations in Minnesota, Washington, Oakland, and Tampa Bay.

Late Monday night, when I started thinking about who I might want to write about this week, the first name that came to mind was young Angels' reliever Jordan Walden, who I’ve been touting in these pages since late last season. He was hovering around the five percent ownership mark, while Fernando Rodney was getting off to the most predictably poor start ever, making Walden a great value buy. That was all well and good until Mike Scioscia had to jump the gun on me and officially make the switch on Tuesday, and now Walden’s got dedicated blog posts and ownership levels in the 40s and climbing. So, no such luck for me there, though I will take some small solace from bringing him to attention far in advance.

While sabermetricians have long downplayed the value of a "proven closer," most teams feel that having one provides an important security blanket. "You want to know that you're going to win the games you're supposed to win," said Twins manager Ron Gardenhire, whose team opens its season tonight in Toronto. "There's nothing more disheartening than working for eight innings to get the lead, then losing in the ninth."